Our Town Too
by WanderlustandFreedom
Summary: Charlie Carlyle is desperate to prove himself; desperate to get away from his past. A bit of blood and a magical song transform the circus tent into the museum building, and he finally has the chance he longs for at the cost of every friendship he's ever made. Love for fame, and money for family. Will he go home with everyone, or stay stuck in the past he never knew he needed?


**I do not own the Greatest Showman, but I will take credit for each of my six protagonists and their overarching characters. **

* * *

There were lights. There was color. There was sound.

Charlie spun on the ropes that hung down around the arena for the trapeze artists and aerialists(like himself) to hang onto. The crowd shouted and screamed as he faked a miss of the rope and dove towards the ground. Five dancers spun back around in perfect formation to catch him just before he hit the ground and to launch him back into the air with a mighty heave. He rocketed back into the air and snatched the rope as the audience screamed. Far down below, the two honorary 'Barnum boys', Adam and Fredrick, were breathing fire as his cousin Emma Wheeler and her little, white, half-brother Dan performed cartwheels and back handsprings with long, colorful streamers attached to their wrists and ankles. They looked like a colorful wind rushing through the audience.

The crowd pounded their boots against the stands and screamed the words along with the singers down below: "This is the greatest show!" They echoed.

Down below, the dancers dispersed as a mass character change occurred. Charlie spotted his dad rushing on from offstage in his red coattails, sliding in the sawdust and popping up onto his feet, all the while twirling his baton around his head. Lettie Lutz, the bearded lady, took up the center, but Phillip Carlyle remained the center of attention as he led the crew through the lighting cues, the music cues, and pieced together the show's finale.

Charlie lowered himself onto the ground and dropped to the sawdust in a perfect split before he joined the circus members in kicking up dust and drawing sweat, pounding the floor and showing the audience what a real good time looked like. As their closing number drew to a close, he turned and sprinted with the others to the center of the stage and watched a lithe, dark-skinned woman drop out of the sky and land next to Phillip, just in time.

Only the eldest four of the five Carlyle children were of performing age. The youngest was backstage with Helen Barnum. Three children of various skin shades gathered around Phillip and Anne, but Charlie didn't join them. He knew the rest of the circus's eyes was on him, but this wasn't the first time he hadn't joined his family for bows.

Carlie Carlyle was eighteen years old and the oldest of five children. The youngest was barely a year old. He was the only child with his dad's pale looks which, trust him, was absolutely horrible. All his life, there had been double-takes, there had been questions, there had been people frowned when they looked from him to his parents for the first time and realized that no, this kid with manners and education was not 100% white. Charlie could tell you for a fact that there was nothing worse than someone looking between him and his parents and then backing away slowly. He'd lost friends, he'd lost acquaintances, and he'd made a whole lot of enemies by simply existing.

Phillip kissed Anne, and the lights went out up above as someone drew a damper over the reflector that kept the tent lit. Then, they brightened and the circus patrons split to go an either remove costumes or show customers out of the tent. Charlie felt his little brothers and sister's eyes on him as he walked backstage, carefully undoing his wrist bindings.

Charlie found a quiet corner and a soft bale of hay to set his foot upon as he worked the knots around his ankles, undoing bright blue tape. that was there to help the audience catch onto his movements easier and to protect his joints from being pulled out of their sockets. His pale skin was red under the bindings, but it would be better within a few minutes, just like it always was. He must have just put it on a bit too tight tonight, he thought as he rubbed the joint.

Heavy footsteps fell behind him, and Charlie didn't need to look up to know who it was. "Dad." He greeted as he switched feet and began undoing the other binding. Phillip Carlyle was removing his red coat behind him. He dropped it onto the bale of hay and sat down.

"You did well out there tonight," Phillip complimented him with a tight smile. There were permanent smile wrinkles around his mouth and eyes, and the corners of his eyes had gone leathery with age.

"I always do good." Charlie rolled his eyes and scoffed. He began to roll the bindings up to be used tomorrow night.

"You do." Phillip acknowledged softly as he watched Charlie work. "Your mother and I are a bit worried about all that, actually. You've been working really hard lately. We miss having you around."

"Look-" Charlie huffed, undoing the first few buttons on his bright blue costume and turning to give his dad an exasperated look. "If this is about the whole bows thing, Phillip, it's nothing. I'm just – getting older. Parents aren't cool anymore." He tried to laugh the whole thing off with his hands in the air while not showing how annoyed he was with the whole conversation.

"Family is important, Charlie." Phillip sighed as his son began to stalk off toward the dressing area. "If you were a little older, if you'd known the circus before, you'd understand that. Back when the circus started, most of us had no one."

"Whatever, dad," Charlie grumbled, quickly weaving his way through the props and the equipment that had been left off-stage. He kicked up some straw into a pile of dung that the zebras had left and went to go and do checks on the ropes for the trapeze artists since it was his night tonight. As he came around the bend, an arm snaked out and grabbed around his waist. He was spun sideways into a dark room and found himself staring into a pair of bright blue eyes.

"Hello, handsome." Mireille smiled as she put her arms around Charlie's neck. Charlie smiled and bent forward to press a kiss against Mireille's forehead, missing her pretty dark brown curls by a few inches.

"Hi, Mireille." He whispered, carefully putting space between them, because she was a lady, and this was how ladies are to be treated. "You did great out there tonight."

Mireille was one of the earlier acts, so she had already changed back into her plainclothes. Blue glitter remained smudged around her eyes and a pretty pink color rested on her lips, the only marks of what had identified her as one of Barnum's employees.

"You too." Mireille complimented him. Her smile had faded somewhat. "I saw you didn't go stand by the rest of your family again."

Charlie groaned and let her go. He turned away, shaking his head. "Not you too." He complained. He pulled up a chair hiding in the shadows and sat down.

"That's the ninth time." Mireille frowned. "You're perfectly fine when you're alone with everyone, why are the crowds so different?" She sat down on a wooden chest that was filled with extra costumes beside him.

"It's not about the crowds." Charlie defended himself. "Just Phillip and Anne-"

"What's with this Phillip business?" Mireille wrinkled her nose. "He's your dad, not your coworker."

"Technically, he's both." Charlie disagreed.

"Technically, he'd be your boss, not your coworker. He owns fifty percent of the show." Mireille reprimanded him. She set a hand down on his forearm and squeezed. "Is this about the whole mixed-race thing?"

"No!" Charlie exclaimed defensively, wrapping his arms around himself like a shield from her words.

"Because, trust me," Mireille continued, "You're not mixed race."

"I'm one-fourth black." Charlie furrowed his brow. "There's not much else to it."

"Okay, so maybe you are mixed-race." Mireille acknowledged with an eye-roll as she crossed her ankles delicately. "But really, why does it matter so much to you? It's where you came from. And you look white anyway. You're not like your mom or siblings. They actually look _mixed_. By all means, you blend right in." Mireille laughed a little in thought and skootched closer to him. "So, you don't want to go bow with your family in front of all your darker-skinned siblings because you don't want people to know you're mixed race? I still go and bow with _my_ mom, Charlie."

"Don't compare you to me," Charlie said angrily. "Your situation and my situation are very different. For one, your mom is an act, not the ringmaster. Of course, she's a famous act, but an act all the same. Your mom and uncle weren't ever runaway slaves. And you and I were brought into the world on very different scandals. Being a bar sinister is not the same as being a _hybrid_." He stood up and began to stalk away, again. He seemed to be doing that a lot these days.

"Hybrid? You've been reading the Herald again." Mireille frowned as she stood up and followed him. She wasn't like Phillip, Mireille was. She knew how to pick fights with him. Phillip had never really exerted control over Charlie; he'd only pulled him aside to explain the principles of things to him as he got older. Charlie didn't step out of line much, so Phillip didn't have to chuck out very much advice.

"So what if I have?" Charlie snapped back to his girlfriend, stepping into the now-empty ring. All the guests had been ushered out and people had gone to turn in for the night. He pulled the lever that released the coiled ropes from above, even though now he'd have to make the journey all the way up top to re-coil them after he checked his own portion of the trapeze equipment. "It's good to be informed." He claimed as he coiled a rope around his fist and began to climb, hand over hand.

"You know that Mr. Bennett takes particular joy in ridiculing us." Mireille frowned. She couldn't follow him up the ropes, being in her dress. "Maybe it's good to be informed, but if you only fill your mind with criticism, there won't be any room for discussion on the other side."

"Desegregated, uneducated aberrations." Charlie recited, focusing on the top of the tent. "You know that's what they call us? And you know what else?

"I don't-" Mireille started before Charlie interrupted her as he swung back and forth between two ropes above her head.

"An archaic clan of grotesques who seem to be consistently interbreeding and spreading their egregious tropes throughout the honorable members of our lower-class societies." Charlie narrated.

Mirelle snorted. "That's the first time I've ever heard 'honorable' attributed to 'lower-class'." She commented, crossing her arms as Charlie tangled his legs in the rope and flipped his body upside down. "And I was going to say I don't need to hear any of that because I know it's not true." She flipped her hair back over her shoulder and straightened her spine. "I have talent, like everyone else here. We're modern, and accepting, and free. Don't you want freedom, Charlie?" Her boyfriend twisted his legs into the rope and hung upside down, on eye-level with her as he started to recite again, even louder.

"Their uncommon traditions even extend to the leadership of the Barnum business, as expressed by the miscegenous relationship practiced by Barnum's business partner." Charlie hissed. "Do you know who they're talking about? Those are my _parents,_ Mireille. People don't talk about your mom and her one daughter, who is one of society's prettiest people since Jenny Lind came to tour, like they do my dad, the white man who married a mulatto woman in an unratified, taboo ceremony and proceeded to have five bicultural children." Charlie untangled himself as his face began to turn purple and gently let himself down from the ropes. Mireille watched his curly hair in the light as he wiped sweat off his brow and began to tie two ropes into a square knot so that he could swing on them.

"You're full of big words tonight." Mireille frowned.

"Biracial." Charlie scowled. "Multi-circumferential. Desegregated. Mixed race. Mulatto."

"Imagine if your mother heard you say that." Mireille scolded. "Can you imagine how that'd hurt her so?"

Charlie's expression softened. "I know." He sighed. "I love my mom, I do. But I just… want to make my own name away from theirs." His shoulders slumped.

"Well, how much money do you need for university?" Mireille asked. "I know that's what you've been doing all the extra acts and working outside Barnum's Circus for."

"I'm so close." Charlie groaned as he untied the knots and gave the ropes a tug. "And yet so far. What well-respecting college will let in a man whose mom ran from slavery as an illegitimate, mixed-race child?"

"It doesn't matter." Mireille rolled her eyes. "You're smart, you're a hard worker, and you don't look black. They'll let you in."

"And kick me right back out when my family shows up to see me for the first time." Charlie despaired.

"Take them to court," Mireille advised. "Or, just go to Brea College." Brea college had been founded after the Civil War ended, ten years before Barnum's first circus had burnt to the ground. It was the first college in the south to be racially integrated. Brea was where Mireille wanted to go for college because, on top of allowing both blacks and whites, they also allowed for boys and girls.

"Frankly, I think you're making this out to be a lot harder than it is." Mireille continued. "You can't change where you come from and if your parents hadn't fallen in love, you wouldn't be here, so you might as well not resent them for it. That's the whole point of the circus; respecting where people come from and learning to find family in what makes us different."

"The circus was a money-maker for Barnum." Charlie rolled his eyes.

"And our parents made it into a refuge." Mireille smiled and stepped forward, resting a hand on Charlie's upper arm. "Phillip Carlyle, Anne and WD Wheeler. Lettie Lutz." Mireille kissed Charlie on the cheek. "We came together here and made it so that we didn't have to hide from society anymore. It's a beautiful thing; I don't know why you're so anxious to hide where you came from, even if everyone already knows." Charlie stiffened, and Mireille's smile faded. "Your parents won't be here forever, so you should respect them while they are. Besides, _we can live in a world that we design._"

Charlie chuckled at the reference to Barnum's song, but Mireille didn't stop there. She loved to sing. "_I close my eyes, and I can see." _She whispered, batting her long eyelashes at Charlie. Charlie laughed as closed his eyes, wrapping one fist around a rope as he put an arm carefully around her waist. "_A world that's waiting up for me… That I call, my own." _

Mireille had inherited the brightest, clearest pair of pipes anyone had ever heard from her mother, Lettie. Barnum had wanted to organize a tour the likes of which had traveled with Jenny Lind, but Lettie had kept a tight hold on her baby girl and told Barnum not to approach her until she was at least eighteen. Since then, Mireille had only gotten better and better. One of her dreams was to meet Jenny Lind and see how she compared to the Swedish Nightingale.

"_Through the dark, through the doors, through where no one's been before. But it feels like home." _Mireille leaned her head onto Charlie's shoulder, and Charlie gave the rope a sharp jerk. He heard a sandbag slip off the rafters up above the same moment he felt his hand launch away from his arm. Mireille gave a little shriek and curled her legs up under her dress as the took to the skies. Charlie laughed.

The sounds of four kids hitting the sawdust hit their ears. Mireille and Charlie's head whipped around to see Adam, Frances, Fredrick, and Emma rushing to the ropes in laughter. The four kids snatched up the ropes and began to swing through each other in a dazingly familiar pattern. Charlie let Mireille fall half-way and watched their combined momentum pull them down enough for him to set her on the ground before he launched up into the air.

"_They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy." _Mireille sang from the ground, letting her high soprano voice bounce off the walls of the tent and carry back. She stood in the center of the circle and watched the five people above her spin circles. "_They can say, they can say we've lost our minds." _She laughed as Emma switched over to Fredrick's rope, and the two of them began spinning in dizzy circles around each other, arms outstretched like they were flying together. _"I don't care, I don't care if they call us crazy. We can live in a world that we design."_

Frances and Adam hit the floor and began a hypnotizing dance while they sang along to the Barnum's song. Adam was Caroline's first son. He had caramel locks and brown eyes, like Barnum. Helen still hadn't married, so he had no cousins, but he found many friends in the circus. Even though he was only fifteen, it was blindingly clear that he and Frances had something special between them. This worried Charlie because Francis was his little sister. She was fourteen, with skin like her mother and waist-long locks in the same shade as her dad's. Charlie was the only person in the family who had actually inherited his dad's skin. When they stood together, people thought she was the oldest child because of how different he looked from each of his siblings.

"_Cause every night I lie in bed and the brightest colors fill my head."_ Mireille and Adam sang as Frances rolled over Adam's back, caught his hand, and spun straight into his grasp. "_A million dreams are keeping me awake."_

Charlie flew up to the supports of the tent and rested from his flight. He watched Emma and Fredrick spin around each other in tantalizing patterns. Emma was his cousin; WD's daughter. After WD had gained a stable income, he'd brought his wife up to live in New York with them. Sarah Wheeler had, unfortunately, suffered an attack by a white man that left her pregnant with a child that was not WD's. Still, they raised the white-skinned child in their family surrounded by all the little black ones like nothing had ever gone wrong. Emma was, of all her siblings, closest to Dan because the two older ones had grown up and moved away. Fredrick was Adam's brother, Caroline's younger son. He had a goofy smile and freckles and loved the circus more than anything in the entire world. Charlie could see him growing up, falling in love with Emma, and raising a family here, just like his parents had.

Down below, Mireille continued to sing soprano with pretty chords that made Charlie's ears feel like they were being given a massage. "_I think of what the world could be; a vision of the one I see. A million dreams is all its gonna take."_

Charlie found himself mouthing the words: "_A million dreams for the world we're gonna make."_

A million dreams. A million thoughts. A million colors. He had all that, somewhere inside his head. He had something that none of his siblings or friends could understand. A drive to prove himself. A drive to be _something_. More than a backup dancer or an aerialist. More than Phillip and Anne's little boy and more than the son of a mixed-race woman. If he could get to college, work hard and strike out on his own, he could make it. He could be a businessman; an overseer of factories. Maybe he could move to Pittsburg. That's where all the big names were making it big. He could work in rubber; rubber was big right now. Or maybe textiles, since textiles would never go out. So long as he could stay on top of designing new patterns and colors, he'd have a business. And since he'd grown up here, maybe he and Barnum could become partners and he could supply the circus with costume materials, and everyone would see that he'd done it. He'd made it big.

Far down below, Adam switched the hand he was holding Francis's with. She gave him a smile and twirled into a pretty dip, with her black hair hitting the floor just like Uncle Phillip had taught him how to do back before he'd realized the young man would use his tricks to sweep his daughter off her feet. His heart was racing, and his ears felt warm as his cheeks took on a pink color. If his mom saw him now, dancing with the pretty black girl and holding her hand and not caring at all that he was getting all covered in sawdust and sweat, she'd scold him. Caroline, after her years of being a prima ballerina, had learned to respect the circus for providing for her education. She spoke kindly with the performers and let her children play with their children. But she didn't want her kids to grow up and intermarry with the circus workers. It would be best, she had decided, to take separate paths. But Adam loved the thrill of the circus. He loved the screams of the crowd and the costumes and the life and light of the performers. And he loved the feeling he got when he glimpsed Francis's bright smile as she bowed with her parents, danced in the light, and let her wings spread.

"_There's a house we can build… every room inside is filled. With things from far away."_ Mireille sighed happily as she watched Charlie reappear from the rafters above Fredrick and Emma, who were spinning in dizzy circles around each other. Fredrick was trying to show off. He swung close to the pillars and began to sprint across the vertical beams that supported the tent.

Charlie swung his legs up and around the rope and split center stage, whirling to the bottom as the rope coiled around his waist and rolled him, arm over arm, to the floor, where Mireille was waiting with a small smile. "_Special things I compile… each one there to make you smile."_ Charlie walked forward and rested his hand on Mireille's cheek. She leaned into him with an even brighter smile. "_On a rainy day."_

Adam and Francis jumped to the ropes again and began to pull themselves up, hand over hand. Their arms were strong from years of practice.

"_They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy," _Mireille whispered as she leaned up, lifted a foot off the ground, and leaned into her boyfriend's frame. The two pressed their foreheads together. "_They can say, they can say we've lost our minds." _

Charlie released the rope and curled both his strong, calloused hands into Mireille's thick, curly brown locks. Both of them failed to notice the crucial scene happening above their heads.

Fredrick, who was still chasing his rope around the circumference of the tent supports, felt the rope that was holding him dead center snag on something along the center. It snapped him back, and he fell to the beams. The rope swung out of reach as Fredrick's head slammed into the wooden beam. He barely managed to dig his fingers into the wood to keep from falling to his death as his vision went black. Emma swung towards him and helped him sit back up. His nose had been crushed, and a stream of blood had started to run from both nostrils. The two quickly tried to stifle the blood, and neither noticed as a single sprinkle of blood fell from his nose, past the wood supports he was trying to keep from falling off of and hit the floor of the stage.

The world started spinning; even more so for Fredrick. Only Charlie and Mireille failed to notice as she sang with her hands twisting the back of Charlie's costume with a bright smile upon her lips. But around them, things seemed to be shifting. Lavender mist rose up from the ground, and the fabric walls were replaced with sturdy brick and wrought iron. The smell of things old and stuffed replaced the smell of animals and sweat and rum.

"_Run away to a world that we design!" _Mireille let out a breath, and she and Charlie moved in synchronously for a quick kiss. Before their lips could touch, however, a man's loud belt of a singing voice came from the rafters.

"_Every night I lie in bed." _A man with neat hair, a top hat, and a brown vest called as he walked down a flight of stairs that had suddenly appeared where ladders had been posted. What had previously been the supports to the trapeze equipment and the tent was now a circular walkway surrounding a stage circle smaller than any of the ones the kids had ever seen before in their lives. He twirled a baton in his hands as he descended the steps with a bright smile. "_The brightest colors fill my head; a million dreams are keeping me awake._"

Adam and Francis hit the floor again, hand in hand. "Grandpa?" Adam whispered.

It took Adam's words for Charlie to put together what he was seeing. PT Barnum, at least twenty years younger than Charlie had ever seen him, was walking across the sawdust towards them. He stopped and stared at him, examining each of the kids. Charlie was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him as he looked at the stage, the rafters, the solid roof above their heads. They were in a building the likes of which Barnum hadn't owned since… the fire of 1865.

Mireille detached from Charlie and covered her mouth in blatant surprise. Fredrick and Emma carefully climbed down, with Fredrick still trying to stay the stream of blood gushing out of his nose. Barnum pulled a white kerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the lad as he frowned at the kids. Charlie stiffened.

"You know my song," Barnum said in a curious tone. "We don't sing that here at the American Museum. Where did you hear it? You seem to know every line."

"A-ha!" Mireille squeaked. She latched onto Charlie's arm and squeezed. Adam swallowed thickly and he and Fredrick exchanged cautious bewildered glances.

Charlie cleared his throat. "Ah, our parents used to sing it to us. Must be a coincidence that's it's your song." He chuckled nervously.

"My wife and I wrote it," Barnum said in a flat tone. While he had originally appeared pleased, he seemed a bit upset at their surprise and the way they were shifting their feet. He crossed his arms. "Performances are over for today as well. You're trespassing on personal property. What are you doing in my stage room?"

"Trespassing?" Adam squeaked.

"American museum?" Charlie whispered. His mind started to work at a million miles an hour. Old building… young Barnum… dated name. Holy crap.

"Are you going to give me an answer, or do I have to call the police?" Barnum growled. "Did one of my performers let you in?"

"No!" Mireille exclaimed. "We just, uh, were here after the show and we really admire the Barnum Circus and we don't mean to trespass and…" She trailed off, looking desperate to add something, anything onto the end of her statement.

"Circus?" Phineas Barnum frowned like he was contemplating the name, but he quickly brushed his thoughts aside.

"We'd like to audition!" Charlie blurted out. Mireille, Adam, Francis, Fredrick, and Emma all shot him panicked looks. "That's right, we want to be a part of the show. We know all the steps, all of the choreography. Look, Francis, Emma, and I made our own costumes in advance, and when Mireille, Adam, and Fredrick heard what we were doing, they decided to come with and see if you'd give us a chance because…" He trailed off, suddenly doubtful of his own plan.

"Because we're tired of hiding in the dark," Mireille added, looking relieved. "But you'd already closed auditions, so we decided to try and catch you after hours. We waited in the stands after the show today and hoped we'd be able to catch you, but we never saw you alone, so we've just been waiting all this time, hoping you'll give us a chance."

Charlie watched the surprise flicker over Barnum's face and swallowed. He hoped Barnum would buy it, otherwise, they'd be out on the streets in, if he was correct, 1864. He also hoped everything Mireille was saying was true because he didn't know for the life of him when Barnum had officially closed auditions, when shows had started, or even if Barnum had had a show at all today. If it were Sunday, the circus would be closed. Sure, he was wearing his red coat, but if Barnum picked a single lie out, they'd be on the streets in seconds. Charlie balled his fists up as beads of sweat appeared in his palm.

"You say you know every line, all the choreography?" Barnum asked.

"Yes!" Emma blurted out beside Fredrick, who was still dabbing at his nose. "We're massive fans."

Barnum stroked his chin and considered their words. Finally, he nodded. "I've got room for a few more acts." He nodded. "But I don't want to take in people who are behind. If you can dance our closing act properly, I'll let you stay in and board with the other performers."

Charlie let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as Mireille looked up at him nervously. "The closing act?" She clarified. "The Greatest Show number, right?"

"Yes." Barnum nodded. "You do know it, right?" He gave Mireille a scrutinizing look, examining her long sleeves and the long skirt to her plainclothes.

"Of course," Mireille said in a high-pitched voice. Her eyes were wide as she stared at Charlie, begging him for help.

Barnum crossed his arms and examined them all. "Would you like me to call in some of the dancers to help guide you through it?" He asked softly.

Mireille relaxed instantly, and Charlie nodded gravely. "Yes, please sir." Fredrick squeaked as he finally managed to clot the blood streaming out of his nose. "We're not used to doing it under scrutiny; you'll have to excuse our nervousness." He tried to rub his red hands on the handkerchief, and then held it in a palm, unsure of whether or not he should hand it back to Barnum. Barnum held out his hand, and a blushing Fredrick placed the bloodied rag in the older man's hand.

"There's a water spigot out back," Barnum advised them. "Run and wash up, and I'll fetch a few of the dancers." He turned and headed back up the stairs. The four older kids came together in a close circle as Emma and Fredrick sprinted to find the water spigot before Barnum came back.

"What are we going to do?" Francis hissed, mostly directing her question at Charlie, the oldest.

"That's not what you should be asking." Adam frowned, standing erect and straight. "How are we here?" His feet shuffled in the sawdust from first, to second, to third and fourth, and finally the fifth position, before shifting back around again. He and Fredrick were trained in ballet and walked with the posture as such. Meanwhile, Francis and Charlie were used to extending their limbs to make them seem larger than life, throwing out their chests, and holding tension in every movement. Acrobats.

"Charlie." Mireille yanked on his arm. Her eyes were wide with panic. "I don't dance. I'm the glorifying entertainment, remember? I open the show and soothe the audiences, so they never see what's coming next."

"You'll have to." Charlie shook his head. "It's not hard. It's just the same routines we've been doing the last few years. Just remember: there's less of us, so we'll need to be loud to have a similar effect." He rubbed his clammy hands on his pants as Emma and Fredrick came sprinting back. Fredrick was soaked to the bone and shivering, but clean aside from a smudge on his shirt.

A sudden thought struck Charlie. "Dear God." He whispered. "What if someone recognizes us?"

"Not recognizes us," Mireille corrected. "The circus is still called the museum. It hasn't been called that since the very, very beginning. We don't exist here. But if anyone comments on how similar we look to, say, Phillip Carlyle-" She gave Charlie a stern look as a vein throbbed in his head. "-things could get messy."

"I think you're safe," Francis said in a somewhat snobbish tone. "Your face is clean. No one will draw the similarities to Lettie Lutz without her famous beard."

"She's slim, too." Adam nodded. "But the rest of us – we all look like someone. If Fredrick or I even stand close to Barnum for too long, people start pointing out things all the time. Too many questions and-" He shrugged helplessly.

"This is insane," Emma whispered, pressing a hand to her head. "What if he only decides to hire some of us?"

"We need to stick together," Mireille said firmly. "As much as possible, until we figure out what is going on." Her dark eyes flickered over Charlie. "But here's a problem; he's going to ask our full names. Two Carlyles, a Lutz and a Wheeler all in the same place will be suspicious. At least the Thompson's are safe – there are lots of those." Adam and Fredrick nodded in agreement.

"Well, maybe Charlie and I can use Grandma's last name. Wasn't it-" Francis started.

"Wait!" Charlie interrupted her. An idea was quickly forming in his head. "I can go by my middle. That's what I'll do. Charlie Mason. That sounds distinguished, doesn't it?" He looked around for approval. "But Francis..." He trailed off, biting his lip. This was his chance to truly sever his ties with his history and begin a life by himself, as Charlie Mason. But if Francis took the same last name as him... Charlie scrambled to come up with a passable reason Francis shouldn't have the same last name as him. "Francis, won't it be suspicious if, since you look so much like Mom and I look so much like Phillip, that we have the same last name? You can go by Hall, Grandma Wheeler's maiden name, and I'll stick with Mason."

Francis's expression grew stormy and hurt. "What?" She asked. "You want to pretend we're not related?"

"Charlie-" Mireille sounded scandalized as she opened her mouth to protest. Adam, Emma, and Fredrick all looked equally uncomfortable.

"Are you ready?" A gruff tone asked from the second floor. The six children snapped their heads up to stare as Barnum descended to the circle with around seven different dancers behind him in their plain clothes. There was the woman in gold, the Russian knife- throwers, the tattooed man, and others. Not Lettie, nor Anne, nor W.D. were among them.

Francis broke off of the group with a stormy expression. She turned a cold shoulder to Charlie and addressed Barnum. "Yes, we are." She proclaimed. "I'll be substituting as ringmaster. Can I borrow a baton?"

The tattooed man and one of the throwers looked to Barnum. Charlie wasn't sure why. Barnum had shared the role of ringmaster equally with Phillip in the early days. It wasn't like it was unique for Barnum to not be leading them through the moves. Barnum's mouth straightened into a line, and then he tossed his cane down towards the sawdust. Francis caught it and planted her feet in the sawdust. "Charlie, Mireille, and Fredrick are going to take stage left in standard positions. Adam and Emma will be on stage right. Can you please come down to where you'd normally be so we can space ourselves accordingly? We haven't exactly had the opportunity to perform in the ring before."

Charlie felt a surge of pride for his little sister's professional attitude before he looked up. The performer's eyes were on him, looking at the wave of his hair and the slope of his spine. He straightened up. They might have known Charlie Carlyle all his life, but Charlie Mason was someone different. He could stand out in his professionalism and in the way that he held himself. Immediately, they looked away, and Charlie knew they'd realized he was someone comfortable in popularity and wealth – just the person he wanted to be seen as.

The performers took their places in staggered windows on the stage. Francis exchanged an uncomfortable look with Mireille and Adam, and Charlie could clearly see why. This was Barnum's original choreography, which had been mostly abandoned and revamped since the museum opened. Panic welled up inside Charlie. He hadn't danced this in at least seven years – since he'd been nine. He'd only seen it occasionally performed by the original members. He closed his eyes and prayed – prayed hard that they remembered it, prayed hard that they'd be good enough to get in.

There was no music. No movement ques other than Francis's baton, which he wouldn't be able to see all the time. Charlie swallowed, and looked at Emma and Adam, across the way. Then, before they could start, he slowly moved out of formation and went to the side of the ring.

"What are you doing, young man?" Barnum barked from up above.

Charlie walked to the stands and found, similar to in the circus tent, ropes bound in figure eights to the posts of the room. Trapeze equipment. He unloosed it and held the end up to his friends. Emma breathed a sigh of relief and left her position to help him unravel it and drag it into the arena. She took it from him since they both knew she was the better trapeze artist. Above them, Barnum stood stone-faced as he watched Emma take a new place on stage. Adam, too, found a second rope and navigated it into place from the ground. Everyone heard the clicks of safeguards locking into place as they pulled the trapeze equipment into place. Emma and Adam stood staggered center from Emma with the ropes coiled around their hands.

"I'll be substituting for Anne Wheeler," Emma announced.

"And I'll stand in for W.D Wheeler." Adam choked.

The performers exchanged looks. One of the throwers shook her head. "Don't bite off more than you can chew."

Charlie frowned. "We've all been trained with trapeze." He explained quickly. Mireille sent him an alarmed look, and Charlie had to quickly backtrack. "We… trained ourselves based on what we saw you guys doing." He said slowly. Barnum's brow furrowed, but he didn't say anything. "And we're quite good," Charlie added. He gave the rope a sharp tug and heard something slip and lock into place above his head. He left the rope in Emma's capable hands and returned to his spot onstage. He nodded to Francis. "On your count." He whispered.

Francis stared at him for a few seconds. He felt like her eyes were boring into his skull and making his hair stand up on end. Then she turned and put her head down, planted her feet, and dug the tip of the baton in at an angle. _"Ladies and Gents._" She announced in a booming tone that made it seem as if she'd taken on an ethereal state. "_This is the moment you've been waiting for."_

The background members all leaped in to complete the background noise and Charlie felt himself entering performance mode as he threw everything he had into the dance. Maybe he was rusty. Maybe they did this specific routine once every six months to a year and he himself didn't usually participate. But by god, he had grown up dancing and he would dance himself into a grave before he let them all be thrown out into the streets.

Francis introduced lighting and music cues like a pro, lowering her voice to hit all those reverberating notes just right. "_And buried in your bones there's an ache that you can't ignore. It's taking your breath; stealing your mind. And all that was real is left behind…"_

Emma and Adam shot into the air spinning so fast Emma's hair whipped around and coiled around her neck as she went. They were good enough that no one could spot the differences to Anne or WD if the two originals weren't performing side-by-side. It was the perks of going up in Barnum's Circus. Up in the air, even in their plainclothes (Or, in Adam's case, his white shirt), they looked like they were made of strength and color.

"_Don't fight it, it's coming for you, running at you. It's only this moment, don't care what comes after._" Francis doubled back through the ring to present the Russian Knife Throwers and then gestured to where the albino twins usually were, even though they weren't currently present. Charlie saw Barnum pull an impressed face at her memory and skill before, on the same beat, every single member of the cast dropped to the sawdust and broke into dance. He used his legs to pull himself into a crab position before jumping his hands back and forth, and then rolling up so he could stop towards Francis with the others as she pretended to drag her fingers along the brim of her hat perfectly.

Charlie could say a lot about his sister. Aside from how she looked nothing like him and how she fell in love way too easily(he was the same way), he could talk for days about how annoying it was that she only ever wanted to do the role of ringmaster and never wanted to be a back-up dancer. He could go on and on about how she was a horrible cook and a horrible seamstress and complain until he was blue about how she was always correcting his dancing and trapeze. But by god, he could never say his little sister didn't have talent. She had the flare and the technique and the confidence to truly shine in Barnum's circus, and this became evident as she sped up on her feet, dancing around the ring on her toes, drawing Barnum's attention from their dancing, to their acts, to Adam and Emma soaring through the sky. It was incredible.

As they neared the third chorus, Charlie had a horrible thought occur to him. It had always been during the third chorus that Barnum had left the stage to flip roles with Phillip, who would rush in to finish the last part of the dance before dropping his mom into a kiss. Charlie watched Francis and realized she was anxiously looking up to the railing, wondering if she should leave or not. Truth be told, they're never actually done this routine without switching ring masters halfway through, but there wasn't a ringmaster in sight.

Fredrick zoomed past him in formation as Francis paused, gave a wild look around to the other kids, and froze. Charlie immediately dropped out of formation and circled around the stage. She watched him with a hard look but ran off to meet him.

Immediately, they knew there was a mistake. Barnum frowned down on them with pinched lips and a couple of the performers broke character to send each other bewildered looks as Francis handed the baton to Charlie and then rushed to take up his role of back-up dancing. As the performers staggered to the outskirts of the circle, Charlie dashed back in, skidding on the ground in a little 360' circle before popping to his feet. It was a trick he'd been able to do since he was six.

Charlie imagined he was PT Barnum, rich enough to buy his wife and daughters whatever they wanted, to bring Jenny Lind to America and to create a business that literally no one got tired of. He imagined he was wealthy and important, and notable, and his chest swelled with his imagined pride. He threw the baton out and put every muscle he had behind his dancing. No matter that he'd finished a show not even an hour ago. No matter that he had literally no idea what was going on or how he got here. He was here to prove himself.

'Look at me,' he demanded an imaginary crowd in his thoughts. 'Watch what I can do. Look at how important I am. I'm going to prove just what I can be, and no one will ever judge me for being Anne and Phillip's son again.'

They struck endpose, with Adam and Emma even tangling themselves up in the ropes to do a complicated in-air pose. Charlie caught Mireille's hand just like Phillip always caught Anne's, and he spun her into his arms. She couldn't stop a smile and leaned up to kiss his cheek before the rest of the performers dropped their pose and stretched their arms out a bit.

"Who!" The tattooed man exhaled. "I don't think we've practiced that hard since we first learned that routine."

"No kidding." The eldest albino twin smiled. "You kids sure have talent." She looked up to Barnum. "What do you think, Barnum?" She called.

Barnum nodded and looked away with a bright smile before he schooled his features. "Not bad!" He called. He hardened his face a little and squinted into the midst. "You, the darker girl who was the ringmaster, what's your name?" He called.

Francis took a few steps forward. Her expression had gone dark again. She glanced at Charlie, who nodded encouragingly. This only seemed to make her madder, though Charlie didn't understand why. It would only be more suspicious if they had different skin tones and the same last names. It was better to not be related, and that way he would be able to make up whatever backstory he wanted. He could be the orphan son of two English merchants who had been taken in by his uncle and raised until his uncle had passed away and he'd been forced to live on the streets. Or he could be from the south, brought north by the factory rush. The possibilities were endless.

"Francis Harper Hall," Francis announced, dejectedly. "You can call me Francis or Fran."

"Francis." Barnum decided. "What were you doing, leaving in the middle of the show?"

Francis seemed stunned by the question. She took a half-step back and glanced nervously over her shoulder. Mireille, Adam, Emma, and Fredrick were all equally stunned by this question. They couldn't remember a single time they hadn't switched ringmasters during chorus three. But something told Charlie they'd misinterpreted something. He looked up to Barnum and tried to adopt a bit of a distinguished accent as he spoke. "I know the last part a tad better than her, so I thought I'd step in and give her time to show her dancing skills." He announced.

"Hmm." Barnum huffed aloud. "Well, I hope you can dance the dance as well as all of your friends. I don't share the role of ringmaster with anyone."

Anyone? Charlie squinted in confusion. "What about Phillip Carlyle?" Francis blurted out. Charlie forced himself to remain indifferent to the name.

It was suddenly Barnum's turn to look confused. "Who?" He asked.

Francis shrunk back in complete shock. "Phillip Carlyle?" She asked, looking around at all the performers. They all exchanged confused looks. Charlie heard the woman in gold muttering: "You know who they're talking about?"

Phillip Carlyle, apparently, didn't exist.

A surge of relief ran through Charlie. Not only was he free of his last name and his brothers and sisters, but he also didn't even have to worry about anyone recognizing him as Phillip's son. He didn't look anything like his mom anyways, so this meant that he was completely safe. "Never mind." He blurted out. "What did you think? Are we any good?"

Barnum stroked his chin and considered them all. He pointed into the crowd again. "You, white girl with the long dress. Who are you?"

It was Mireille. She stepped forward, shaking a little but holding herself steady. "I'm Mireille Giovanna." She introduced.

Upon hearing her middle name, Barnum let out a little exhale. "That's a mouthful." He decided. "Mireille, can you do trapeze?"

Mireille's lip wobbled a little, but she held firm and locked eyes with Barnum. "No, sir. I wasn't trained like they were." Mostly because Mireille preferred being on the ground where she could act like a demolition team striking through anything. She didn't like being in the air, at the mercy of gravity and momentum. She could only do basic tricks, and never anything like the Carlyle and Wheeler kids could.

"Your dancing is behind everyone else's," Barnum said flatly. "So either you have a lot of catching up to do or I can't take you on as a performer."

"She can catch up!" Charlie interrupted quickly. "And besides, she's got lots of other talents too!"

"Charlie!" Mireille hissed, sending a scathing glare his way. He realized his mistake immediately. Assuming Lettie Lutz was with the circus and wasn't gone like Phillip was, she definitely didn't know she had a daughter. Meaning she definitely wasn't fending Barnum's greedy claws off of Mireille. And if this was before Jenny Lind had ever come over to America, then Barnum was still looking for a way to propel himself to the top dogs. Mireille didn't want to become his next victim.

But it was too late. "Like what?" Barnum demanded. Mireille looked up and squared her shoulders like a queen. She swept her beautiful thick hair over her shoulders and announced: "I write songs, I choreograph dances, and I can apply makeup and fix costumes like a pro."

"Hmm." Barnum huffed aloud again. He considered her words even further. "I still want you to catch up." He told her finally. "But I could use someone like you to teach everyone how to apply things and help with things get broken. Anne and Lettie are fantastic, but we need all the extra hands we can get."

And that settled it. Anne Wheeler and Lettie Lutz were definitely real people, wherever they were. Which was probably a very good thing to have confirmed, considering they'd announced Emma and Adam as WD and Anne substitutes.

"What numbers don't you know?" Barnum asked. He began to descend the stairs as he spoke.

The kids exchanged looks. So many new songs had been written in the past decade, like Sarah Wheeler's songs and then the ones they'd written. How were they supposed to know which ones existed here already or not? "We know all of them," Francis announced.

"So you know Come Alive and Cheer, Boys, Cheer?" Barnum asked.

"Yes," Charlie answered for the group, firmly. Barnum's eyes hovered on his in a somewhat distasteful way.

"What about Finnegan's Wake and Wait for the Wagon?" Barnum asked.

"We know all of them," Charlie repeated, even firmer this time.

"We even know This is Me and From Now On!" Adam piped up from behind Francis. Everyone turned around and cast him a few strange looks.

Barnum crinkled his nose. "I've never heard of those songs." He proclaimed. The blood drained out of Adam's face as Charlie's mind went into overdrive.

"Perchance…" He started slowly. "Have you ever heard of Jenny Lind?"

Barnum furrowed his brow. "I can't say I have." He admitted. "Is she a dancer?"

"Oh, just a singer," Mireille said in a lightheaded tone. "Those songs are related to her. Our bad. But yes, we know all of the circus's songs."

They were way far into the past. This was before Jenny Lind, before the renaming of the circus, before PT Barnum's most favorite songs. This was a world where Phillip Carlyle apparently didn't exist, where no one had any children yet and where some of the songs they knew either hadn't been written or had never been shared with the public.

"Hmm," Barnum said, again. "Well, I think that you're good enough." He turned to the Woman in Gold. "Martha, could you please escort Mireille, Francis and-" He paused to snap his fingers at Emma.

"Oh, I'm Emma Wh-" She cut herself off quickly, glancing around at her friends for help.

"Will Davis." Mireille supplied hastily. "Emma Will Davis. And these two young men are Adam and Fredrick Thompson." She gestured to the last two boys as they shifted their feet in a sloppily-concealed panic.

"No middle names?" Barnum asked with a raised eyebrow. Charlie let out an exhale. Their names were actually Adam Phineas and Fredrick Taylor, but they couldn't exactly use PT Barnum's names right smack in the middle of their own when they looked like younger copies of him, could they?

"No, sir." Adam stuttered. "Just Adam and Fredrick."

"Lovely." Barnum decided. "Martha, please take Mireille, Francis, and Emma to Lettie and ask her to help them settle in on the block. Constantine, could you take these young men to Daniel and have him help them. I'll have O'Malley add them to payroll."

Charlie looked over at Mireille. They were being separated, and far sooner than they would have liked. They had no time to come up with a story, and no way of knowing where they'd end up since the building was already so different from the tents. Charlie swallowed and put his head down as Barnum continued talking.

"And kids, I don't allow trespassers and I don't always treat them so kindly. Remember that next time you want to hang around somewhere hours after showtime." Barnum suddenly seized Charlie's shoulder and turned him around. "Look, boy, you're the oldest, yes?" He asked.

"Yes," Charlie answered, trying his best not to wilt under Barnum's imposing stare. Barnum carefully held a finger up in Charlie's face.

"I'm not sure how you know that song, but I'm mighty interested in hearing whatever story you come up with," Barnum told him in a lowered tone. Charlie swallowed. He was, of course, talking about A Million Dreams. Charlie had no idea what kind of story he could come up with on such short notice.

"Go on then!" Barnum waved. He took his cane back from Charlie and walked to put away the ropes. Francis and Emma followed Martha, the woman in gold, up the stairs as Mireille hovered near the base of the stairs. Charlie walked over, and they shared a quick kiss.

"Meet you here later?" Mireille whispered.

"Probably be best to avoid the ring for a while." Charlie murmured. "I'll try and come find you. Don't hate me if I can't, though."

Mireille nodded. She gathered up her heavy skirts and headed up the stairs. Charlie breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god, they weren't going on the streets.

* * *

**There is no regualr update scheduled for this (Because I'm actually writing as I go for once.) Ending is already planned and everything. **


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